A Dark Horse Read online

  Natalie smiled reassuringly, nervous about what was to come, but sure that Adele was on her side. Boldly, she took one of Adele’s warm hands and held it firmly in hers. “So explain.”

  Adele drew in a shuddering breath. “When I arrived at your brother’s crime scene I found the arresting cop, Officer Jay Morrell, assaulting Crisco. Not roughing him up, Natalie. Sadly, that sort of thing happens all the time. This was bad. The way Morrell was hammering him, he could have easily killed him. And Crisco wasn’t resisting arrest, and he wasn’t fighting back, he was just screaming and begging for it to stop.”

  Natalie’s nostrils flared. “You saw this happen?”

  Adele nodded.

  “You stopped it?”

  “Yes, but not before Officer Morrell got in another couple of good hits and a vicious kick. He knocked Crisco out cold. Morrell told me that Crisco had confessed to killing your brother just before I came in, but Crisco couldn’t even speak coherently by the time I arrived.”

  “Then the cop should be punished for abusing his power.” Natalie’s free hand shaped a fist. “I know I should be more upset that he hit Crisco, but Crisco killed my brother.” A tiny growl escaped. “If I could back over Crisco with my car and get away with it, I would.”

  Adele said slowly, “I know.” Guiltily, she released Natalie’s hand.

  Natalie inclined her head curiously. “I don’t understand why this would ruin my brother’s case.”

  Adele swallowed hard. “Crisco’s confession, if he made one initially at all, was coerced. It should be thrown out because it can’t be trusted. And if it’s gone, there is no case.”

  Natalie’s eyebrows drew together, and adrenaline began to surge through her as she finally and fully grasped where this conversation was headed. No. No. NO! “But you said Crisco confessed before you arrived. How do you know it was coerced?”

  “Morrell was still beating him when I arrived. If I did to you what Morrell did to Crisco, I could make you say anything, Natalie.” Adele lowered her voice. “Anything I wanted. We can’t believe what Morrell says because he’s a dirty cop and we can’t believe what Crisco says either. He was being tortured.”

  Natalie leaned away from Adele, both captured by and furious with the earnest look in her eyes. “Why would he confess if he wasn’t guilty? No one would do that!”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but you’re wrong. People do it all the time.”

  Natalie struggled to wrap her mind around what Adele was saying. “But-but why in this case?”

  Adele shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know why, except that Crisco’s deathly afraid of Morrell.”

  “This doesn’t even make sense! You’re the police. Why are you trying to get a confession thrown out?” She didn’t give Adele a chance to respond before she asked incredulously, “So, I’m supposed to believe there is some sort of big conspiracy against that old down-and-out drunk?”

  Natalie stood, needing to put some distance between herself and Detective Lejeune. Betrayal bubbled up into her throat and burned like acid. She’s helping the bad guy? I thought…I thought she was helping me…

  “I don’t think there’s a conspiracy, but I do think there is a rotten cop and that Morrell threatened to do something to Crisco if he took back the confession.” Adele sprang to her feet and took a step toward Natalie, trying to stop her retreat. “Please, Natalie. Try to understand. I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing after what I saw and heard.”

  Natalie covered her mouth with her palm for a few seconds as her mind spun furiously. “But you told me yesterday that they found the murder weapon on Crisco. And you said the forensics back this up.”

  Adele nodded miserably.

  “Then I don’t understand! Are you saying Crisco did or didn’t kill my brother?”

  Adele paused and looked down at her hands. “I don’t know for sure. I—”

  Natalie bared her teeth. “What do you think happened?”

  “I think Crisco most likely killed Josh, and that Morrell forced him to confess.”

  “If he’s guilty then who cares? A guilty man will go to prison, right where he belongs.”

  “Somebody has to care. I care.” Adele’s jaw worked for a few seconds, her entire body vibrating with frustration. “Going to the Public Integrity Bureau with this information was the right thing to do.”

  Natalie’s mouth dropped open. “The right thing for whom?”

  “I-I-I…” Adele stared at her with watery eyes, unable to answer the question.

  “Oh, my God.” Natalie bent at the waist, feeling sick. “Landry was right. You did this for yourself. You did this so you wouldn’t feel guilty. You’re going to help my brother’s murderer go free to ease your conscience.”

  Tears filled Adele’s eyes. “The police just can’t attack people. We’re supposed to protect people. You’re supposed to be able to trust us.”

  “What are you talking about?” Natalie cried. “I did trust you! And look what happened.”

  Adele’s frustration leaked into her voice. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her shaky hand. “I-I don’t know what you want me to say. I agonized over this, but it had to be done. More than…more than anything, I wanted to help you and do my job. I wanted to do both.”

  Adele’s phone rang again, interrupting them a second time. This time she savagely yanked it up from the carpet without looking at who was calling, and slung it across the room with shocking speed.

  Natalie jumped when it hit the far wall and exploded into a dozen pieces, plastic and glass flying everywhere. Her voice went eerily flat. “You said you were a philosophy major in college. This is just some sort of esoteric, theoretical case study of what is and isn’t justice to you, isn’t it?”

  Adele looked stricken. “No, Natalie.”

  “I have news, Detective,” Natalie mocked, her chest constricting. “This isn’t a philosophy word problem. This is about Josh being murdered! He was a real live, breathing, good person, who is now dead! He will never have a career or his own family or do all the things he dreamed about doing. He’s dead! And you knew you were going to ruin the State’s case this entire time?”

  Adele closed her eyes. It took her several shaky breaths to find her voice. What emerged was a broken whisper. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  Anger swelled in Natalie like the incoming tide, then crested. She’d been lulled into a sense of safety when she was most vulnerable, only to have the rug ruthlessly yanked out from beneath her. “I don’t believe you. How can I believe anything you say?”

  “I never lied to you!” Adele reminded her severely, her hands gesturing wildly as she spoke. “And I didn’t want to hurt you or your family.”

  Natalie’s eyes widened with realization and she took another step back. “These last couple of days…I wondered who would be so kind to a stranger. But you’ve been so helpful because you felt bad about what was going to happen! About what you were going to do.” She shook her head quickly, full of disbelief at her own stupidity. “God, I feel like an idiot.” Embarrassment mixed with raw anger. “I trusted every goddamn word out of your mouth and all the while you were just softening the blow.”

  The breath flew from Adele’s chest as though she’d been punched in the gut. She gasped. “No, Natalie! I truly wanted to help you. I still do.”

  “You were right, you know.”

  Adele tried to change gears. “I-I…what?”

  Natalie glared. “I do want to hit you.”

  Adele looked away, long wet lashes fluttering over dark circles.

  “You dried my tears, and held my hair, and told me everything was going to be okay. Why? I don’t…You could have stopped us from starting to become friends!” You should have stopped me.

  “I didn’t want to stop it.” Miserable, Adele reached out for her. “I’m still your friend.”

  Reeling, Natalie lifted her hands to ward off Adele from coming any closer. The movement stopped Adele in her tracks. “Don’t. Ple
ase.” Their eyes battled for several fierce seconds. Neither woman blinked. “You were never my friend. Did you even look for Josh after I left New Orleans?”

  Adele inhaled sharply. “What are you talking about?”

  Natalie lifted her chin a little. “Did you bother to look again?”

  “How can you say that?” Adele growled. “I looked for weeks! He wasn’t my only case, but that didn’t mean I ever completely stopped.”

  “Why would I believe that? You don’t care about him now. You don’t care about his killer paying for his crimes. You don’t care about what your actions will do to his family. You. Only. Care. About. You!”

  Deeply wounded, Adele allowed her arms to fall loosely at her sides. She looked a little shell-shocked by Natalie’s venomous words. “I’m so—”

  Turning on her heel, Natalie bolted from the living room, silent tears trailing down her cheeks as she grabbed her bag and threw the strap over her shoulder. She marched out of the house without looking back.

  Adele was hot on her heels, but stopped in the doorway of her home even when Natalie didn’t.

  Natalie was simply finished.

  “Natalie.”

  Finished feeling like a fool.

  “Natalie, wait.”

  Finished with New Orleans.

  “Dammit! Please!”

  Finished with police stations and morgues.

  “Natalie!”

  And most especially finished with Detective Adele Lejeune.

  Chapter Six

  Six months later…

  Gun drawn, Adele crept around the side of a rickety old structure that was more shack than house. Katrina had devastated the neighborhood, located in New Orleans’ notorious D-block in the 6th Ward, and years later almost forty percent of the houses still sat abandoned and in ruin. The sound of gunshots wasn’t uncommon, and on this street the police were about as welcome as a raging case of the clap.

  It was just past twilight and the dark bluish tint of the evening sky had shifted into a deep black-purple. Sporadic lights inside the tiny houses began to pop on up and down the street, but there were no streetlights for illumination. This was the last house on the block. It rested a bit farther from the street than the others, and the impending night seemed to want to swallow it whole.

  With her back pressed lightly against the house, Adele moved deeper into the shadows, and headed for a back window and the faint light that emanated from it.

  She could hear voices coming from inside the house. The voices she’d been looking for.

  Annie and Milo Olmstead had been missing for nearly a week. The four- and five-year-olds’ parents were in the middle of a cutthroat divorce. Their father, Reggie, a nasty piece of work who was only a few months out of prison for attempted robbery and assault with a deadly weapon, had picked up the children from school one day and simply never took them home. Then all three of them had disappeared.

  Adele had leveraged every street contact she had, spent hour after relentless hour interviewing everyone who even knew Reggie or his wife, and followed every wild goose chase until she had meticulously traced the children and their father to a dilapidated house that belonged to Reggie’s old girlfriend’s cousin.

  Her hard work was about to pay off…

  She let out a soft curse as her feet sank into the spring mud and one boot made a loud squelching sound when she lifted it and gave her leg a little shake.

  “Where are you?” she whispered softly to herself. Her focus drifted back to the darkening street. Adele had called for backup more than fifteen minutes ago, but so far she was still alone.

  Resentment ate away at her like a disease. This wasn’t the first time her fellow officers had taken their sweet time coming to her aid. She scarcely wanted to give dispatch her name anymore when she called for backup. It was as though there was an NOPD labor strike…but the “blue flu” was focused solely against her. “Fuckers.”

  Then the voices inside the small house shifted into yells and the sounds of crying children. She strained to see down the street again. “C’mon!” Crouched low, Adele kept moving until she was right below the cracked window and the voices became clearer. The side of the house was damp and the moisture soaked into the back of her shirt and bra. She listened carefully, a nervous sweat trickling between her breasts.

  “Daddy, no!” a young boy’s frantic voice pierced the night and Adele closed her eyes, her heart racing. Every muscle in her body itched to propel her inside the house to grab those kids.

  “Shut up!” There was a loud crash and a muffled shriek.

  “I’m sorry,” the boy sobbed.

  Reggie, Adele thought with disgust. She was going to enjoy throwing that prick into jail.

  “Where is it?” Reggie bellowed.

  His voice thundered so loudly that even Adele flinched. Those poor kids must have just wet their pants.

  “I don’t know, Daddy!”

  The words trembled and were soft enough that Adele could barely make them out. Her eyes narrowed. Annie.

  “I asked you a question, little bitch!”

  Anger bubbled up in her so quickly that Adele couldn’t stop herself from raising her head and peering inside, even at the risk of being seen. A single light bulb cast the small kitchen in a dull yellowish glow, and dark, jagged shadows shot inward from the corners of the room. The room was filled with hazy smoke from a lit cigarette smoldering in a small tin ashtray by the sink.

  Adele couldn’t locate Milo, but in the center of the room, she saw Reggie shaking Annie as though the little girl was nothing but a rag doll, her head flinging wildly from side to side. Adele didn’t wait to see more. She sprang up and sprinted for the back door. She had to get inside right now.

  Annie screamed when her father slapped her. Hard. He lifted her by her slender biceps and shook her again, her blond head flopping against her shoulders. “I told you not to touch the fuckin’ lighter! How am I supposed to smoke? Huh?”

  Adele burst through the back door with so much force she had to stop herself from skidding directly into the kitchen table. “Freeze!” she shouted, her Glock pointed straight at Reggie’s head. “Let her go.” She pinned him with a flinty stare and lifted the gun a little higher. “Slowly,” she instructed precisely. “Let her go slowly.” Her heart pounded furiously in her chest.

  The whites of Reggie’s eyes grew so big that his pupils nearly disappeared. “Who the fuck are you?” But instead of lowering the girl slowly, he simply opened his hands, sending her crashing to the floor and onto bony knees.

  The girl released a shrill cry.

  “I’m the police,” Adele growled, her darker instincts demanding retribution for what she’d already seen. Her voice dropped an octave. “You really should shut up.”

  Grabbing hold of her emotions, she spoke gently to the sobbing girl. “Honey, you’re Annie, right?” Adele didn’t bother to ask her if she was okay. She clearly wasn’t. The girl just looked at her, too rattled to answer, but Adele recognized her from her photo. “Annie?”

  “Y-yes?” she sniffed. Blood dripped from her nostrils and over her lips.

  Adele’s chest ignited. “Step away from your father and over to me, sweetheart. That’s it. I won’t hurt you. I’m the police. I have a badge, see?” She gestured toward the gold shield on her belt.

  Reggie sneered at the child as though she was a traitor when she began to move. “You little—”

  “I said, shut up! On your knees. Hands on your head! Now!” The gun suddenly felt hot and slick in Adele’s sweaty hand. She realized with nauseating clarity how badly she wanted to pull the trigger and simply rid the world of this piece of filth.

  Reggie reluctantly dropped to his knees with a loud thud and laced his fingers behind his head. He glowered at her, his gaze glinting menacingly. “These are my damn kids. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Adele cocked her head to the side. “What part of shut up is unclear, dumb fu—?” Then she remembered the little girl, qu
aking at her side. “Reggie.” Adele released one of her hands from her pistol and used her fingers to softly tilt the girl’s chin upward to look into her eyes.

  Annie looked confused and dazed. It was hard to see in the dim light, but her eyes were the lightest blue Adele had ever seen, and her pupils looked as though they were different sizes. Concussion.

  Adele bit her tongue and glanced around expecting to see Milo cowering in a corner, but he wasn’t there. A sense of unease washed over her. She hadn’t been able to clear the house. She had no idea who, besides Milo, might be hiding there.

  “Milo,” she called out gently. “Milo, you can come out. This is the police.”

  There was no answer.

  “Run, son! Go grab Daddy’s twelve-gauge!” But Reggie whimpered when Adele took a menacing step toward him, her patience at an end.

  “I’m going to take you back to your mama, Milo,” Adele tried again. “She misses you and your sister.”

  “That junkie whore?” Reggie laughed bitterly. “She’s bat-shit crazy.”

  Adele ignored him and cautiously moved a little deeper into the room, keeping her gun trained on Reggie, while trying to see into the darkened hallway. Annie was practically plastered to her leg and they moved as one. “Milo? You can come out. It’s safe.”

  “S’okay, Milo,” Annie warbled.

  The boy instantly and silently poked his head out from around the corner, startling Adele who quickly swung her gun in his direction.

  “Thank God,” Adele mumbled and retrained her weapon on Reggie.

  Milo’s mouth was bleeding. The blood had formed a lurid red pattern on his dingy white T-shirt that looked like a demented Rorschach test.

  Adele felt another surge of anger. She should have come inside sooner. “Come stand with me and Annie. It’s okay.” She extended a hand and motioned him forward with curled fingers.

  Milo tiptoed around his father and came to rest next to his sister. Ignoring the adults completely, he offered the sleeve of his T-shirt for his sister to wipe her bloody nose.

  Adele extended her hearing outside. Still no backup. What the actual fuck? But again, she couldn’t wait. It wasn’t safe to leave things as they were. She still hadn’t patted down Reggie for weapons. “Annie and Milo?”